I do not own the Warhammer 40000 universe nor any of its characters. They belong to Games Workshop.
Inspired by the Dornian Heresy, by Aurelius Rex.
The Cadian Apocalypse : Epilogue
Amidst the ruins of Kasr Tyrok, Amalrich the Martyr-Maker cautiously approached the crouched form of Rogal Dorn. The Black Templar walked between the scattered corpses of Grey Knights and Custodes, careful to avoid threading upon them. It was the least he could do to show this much respect to warriors who had dared stand against the Master of the Seventh, regardless of their misguided allegiance to a dead Emperor. Even their weapons had been left untouched, the whole tableau forming a morbid tribute to their last stand and the might of he who had triumphed over them all.
The Daemon Primarch of Khorne was absent-mindedly toying with the remnants of the last Imperial champion to die at the Daemon Primarch's hands. The body was long since dead, but the soul was still there, trapped between Dorn's claws and silently screaming as it was torn into ever-smaller pieces. Dorn paid no heed to the spirit's torment, his gaze instead turned toward the eastern horizon.
Amalrich knelt, and waited. Born centuries after the end of the Heresy and the War of Woe, on a world whose name he'd forgotten, this was his first time in his gene-lord's presence, and he didn't dare speak without being addressed first. There had been stories told by the veterans of the Black Templars concerning the temper of the Seventh Primarch and the consequences of intruding upon him, some of them dating from before the Legion's eyes had been opened to the universe's blood-soaked truth.
Eventually, Dorn turned his gaze toward him. Inside his armor, Amalrich felt his blood heat up, and fought back the sudden impulse to draw his weapon and charge the avatar of violent death before him.
"You are one of Sigismund's knights," the Daemon Primarch said. "You are one of my blood."
"Yes, Great One," the Black Templar replied, bowing his head low. It hurt to speak, hurt to think. He'd thought being in Sigismund's presence as the Destroyer neared the threshold of daemonhood was bad, but this was far, far worse. "I am called Amalrich."
There was a pause, which stretched long enough Amalrich was convinced he was about to die. Lord Sigismund may have reforged the Seventh Legion under their gene-sire, but all Black Templars were still guilty of the sin of disobedience, however necessary it had been.
Then Dorn exhaled, his breath carrying the smell of a thousand broken swords and ten thousand bleeding corpses.
"Sigismund failed," he declared, the words shaking Amalrich to the point his control almost slipped, and he had to bite his own tongue until he tasted his own transhuman blood in order to remain immobile. "The Destroyer has fallen. He now stands before the Throne of Skulls, and Khorne is most displeased with him … as am I."
Slowly, Dorn stood, discarding his wretched plaything. His burning wings stretched, droplets of liquid fire falling from them and burning through the rubble. He looked up, toward skies that were still full of smoke that could do nothing to block his vision.
"For now, however, his punishment is in Khorne's hands, and I have greater matters to concern myself with. After all … My father is dead. Now my brothers and I must decide which one of us is most fit to claim the mantle of Master of Mankind to guide the species against the xenos who would challenge our mastery of the stars," the Daemon Primarch mused. "And what better way than a succession war ? After all, it is only right that the strongest of us should rule."
"Indeed, Great One," Amalrich managed to say. The Darkness was growing stronger the longer he stayed in Dorn's presence, blind, animalistic rage threatening to consume him. He could feel the warding runes on his armor wither and die one by one. But he would not shame himself in front of his Primarch. "That is … how it must be."
Dorn nodded, to himself more than to his kneeling son.
"Yes … yes." He continued to speak, clearly talking to himself and growing more animated with every word. "Much as I'd have enjoyed destroying him myself, Sanguinius has already been removed from the competition by Lorgar. The Lion is too afraid of his mortal father's shadow to seize this opportunity. Ferrus will be an obstacle, but he'll learn his place and accept it in time. And Guilliman …"
The face of the Daemon Primarch contorted into the very image of violence. Despite the pounding of his twin hearts nearly deafening him, Amalrich's transhuman hearing picked up the sudden screams of rage and bloodlust in the distance as entire warbands of cultists were driven to slaughter each other.
"My treacherous brother will pay for what he did to me," hissed Dorn. "And once I have broken him and claimed his skull for Khorne, I will deal with my foolish siblings on Terra and wipe out the last traces of my father's failed kingdom. The very stars will run red before I am done, and in that crucible of war, I shall forge a new Empire of Blood."
Images flashed in the Black Templar's mind as his Primarch spoke, glorious visions of endless armies marching across the stars under the banner of Khorne, waging eternal war against all who opposed the will of Dorn. He saw entire Sectors remade into daemonic forges chewing on the bones of dead worlds to produce the weapons of this infinite warhost, and monuments to the glory of Khorne and his champions that dwarfed the stars themselves.
"Gather my sons, little Amalrich, and whatever servants of Khorne remain on this world that you think can still be of use." Blood filled the Martyr-Maker's mouth as he heard his name spoken by his gene-sire. "Then call for the fleet. It is time for us to leave this miserable rock."
"As you command, my lord."
Somehow, Amalrich managed to stand, head still bowed, and leave the graveyard of silver and gold, without stumbling or losing his mind to the Darkness. To his horror, however, the pressure on his soul barely relented as he put distance between himself and the Daemon Primarch.
A terrible thought suddenly came to him. Could it be that, by freeing Dorn from Guilliman's manipulations, had Sigismund damaged the pact between Khorne and the Seventh Legion by which they were protected from the blood-crazed madness that consumed the weak-willed followers of the Lord of Skulls ?
No. Surely not. Surely this was just the result of Dorn's lingering displeasure toward the Destroyer's great deceit, or that of Khorne for Sigismund's defeat.
Surely.
Just like he'd told Melusine, there'd been a lot of work waiting for Fabius on the Pulchritudinous. Really, it was shameful how quickly his people had fallen apart in his absence. It seemed they'd grown too used to his presence – no, he supposed the fault laid with him. He'd used his clones to keep watch over them too much, leaving them with little experience in handling matters without him. That would have to change : his children would have to be able to live without him to guide them eventually.
Once he'd confirmed Melusine's good health in person and changed his suit of armor for one equipped with a proper Chirurgeon – he had to keep up appearances, and the sight of the many-limbed device went a long way in convincing his followers of his identity, since he was possibly the only being in the galaxy the arcano-mecanic constructs obeyed – his focus had been the withdrawal of important assets back to the fleet. The hulks of the Alpha, Beta and Gamma Redoubts had been abandoned on the surface of Cadia, but the most valuable equipment inside had been stripped down and carried away. It was a shame to abandon so many stasis pods, but now that the New Marines were active, he'd no immediate need for them.
The New Marines who had survived had been recalled to troop transports and brought back to the fleet, and the corpses of those who'd already died had been recovered when feasible. Much of the bolter fodder had also been evacuated, but millions had been left behind. That was fine : there were plenty more where they'd come from. In the Eye of Terror, a victorious warlord rarely had to worry about replacing their lowest troops – there were many, many other things to worry about.
The Black Templars had also begun to withdraw their forces, which was more of a surprise. According to his psykers, Dorn was gone, vanished back into the Warp – not banished, that was an important distinction. Fabius briefly wondered if the Lord of the Seventh had fled from what was coming to Cadia, but dismissed the idea. Even before the rebellion, Dorn would never have retreated from a challenge. Had the Warp entity pulling his strings recalled him to avoid a confrontation ? Somehow Bile doubted two Daemon Primarchs would be able to exist in the same star system without coming to blows. In fact, he strongly suspected that any chance of even a semblance of unity between them had died with the Emperor to serve as a common enemy.
The Imperials were evacuating too, with far more discipline than Sigismund's horde. The sight of both sides abandoning a planet they had fought so harshly to claim was a strange one, but Fabius could understand how the arrival of the other Redoubts would have made even the sternest commander retreat. And then, of course, there was what had come after his reserve.
Several hours after his return to the Pulchritudinous, the fleet of the Salamanders arrived, and Fabius couldn't blame his other selves (with whom he hadn't been able to synchronize yet, there had simply been too much to do) for running from that. Maybe, if he'd the entire strength of the Black Crusade at the start of the invasion, including the Black Templars and Dark Angels willing to follow a battle-plan to the letter by some miracle, they might be able to win, though the casualties would be horrendous.
Now ? The Salamanders would still pay a high price in blood and materiel if they chose to make a fight of it, but their victory was inevitable. The Primogenitor still had a few trump cards in reserve aboard the Omega Redoubt – some of which might even be of use against the Black Dragon if it came to it – but these would be of little help in a void battle against the armada of the Eighteenth Legion.
The Clonelord had heard rumors of the Calamities, of course, and known better than to dismiss the tales of superweapons being constructed in secret. He was old enough to remember the arsenal of horrors the Salamanders had deployed during the Great Crusade, in a time when their Primarch and his Techmarines had still been limited by the barest pretence of following the Emperor's edicts. And even if his own genius was unrivalled by anyone now that the Master of Mankind was dead, it stood to reason that, if he could assemble a Legion's worth of transhuman warriors in the Eye of Terror, other projects of similar scale could also be conducted.
After all, the Salamanders had been plundering the galaxy for thousands of years. They had to have been doing something with all those resources.
Even so, the megastructure sailing at the center of this flock of martial nightmares rendered into metal worried him. It was vast, defying mortal comprehension and measuring instruments alike. Its name was shrieked across the void on psychic waves, a blatant proclamation of its might and a declaration of its intent and purpose all at once : the Will of Vulkan.
"My lord," one of the hereteks called out respectfully, "we're being hailed by the Salamanders."
"At last," he muttered, before continuing louder : "Put them through, please."
The crew of his ship were good at their job. Despite the many disturbances on both mundane and supernatural frequencies, the connection was established in less than a minute, and an Astartes clad in the colors of the Eighteenth Legion and carrying a hammer crackling with power appeared on a hololithic projector in front of Fabius. When he spoke, his voice was distorted, but still understandable :
"I am Tu'Shan the Cruel, Emissary of the Black Dragon. I speak for all forces of the Eighteenth Legion in Cadia."
"Greetings, lord Tu'Shan. I am Fabius Bile." He didn't waste time listing the many titles others had heaped upon him : he'd found simply stating his name was both faster and more intimidating. After all, no matter what infamy this Tu'Shan might have achieved, there wasn't a single soul that mattered in the Eye of Terror who didn't know Fabius' name.
"… You don't look like the Clonelord," said the Salamander once it was clear Fabius wasn't going to elaborate.
"How kind of you to notice," Fabius smiled drily. "Recent events have forced me to adopt a new look, but I assure you, I speak for the Consortium and the Black Legion."
"Very well. This, then, is the message of my lord. I see you have begun to evacuate Cadia. That is good, for that miserable rock will not stand for much longer."
Of course. The Pylons. It had taken the blood sacrifice of an entire world to summon Dorn in this system : Vulkan couldn't just fly out of the Eye and into the galaxy, not as long as they stood. Before the Black Crusade had started, Nephalor had explained to him at painful lengths just how difficult the Pylons would make his Legion's contribution to the cause, and though the Clonelord didn't believe half of what the Lord of Stars said (and made sure to verify the other half), in this, he'd told the truth.
"What about the rest of the system ?"
"You can keep it," said Tu'Shan dismissively, as if they were talking about nothing more important than a handful of change. "We do not intend to remain in Cadia. Lord Vulkan has been waiting long enough in the Eye : now his designs extend far beyond its shores."
It was, Bile admitted, a much more diplomatic way of saying that the prisoner wanted to get as far from his former cage as possible.
Still, that was good news, assuming Tu'Shan was being honest, of course. The Black Legion would need the resources of this system in the campaigns to come : Macharia especially, since there were precious few food sources in the Eye of Terror and the ones claimed by the Black Legion were too far to sustain an effective supply line. If the Salamanders weren't interested in the planet, Bile could go ahead with his plans to have the New Men deployed as overseers of the population once the last defenders were defeated. It would double as an interesting test to see if his children could manage to pacify a planet that would be set against them : the Primogenitor didn't doubt for a moment that there would be resistance long after the last Imperial ship had abandoned the system.
"Even if Cadia falls, the Aegis Occularis still stands," he warned, to prompt the Chaos Lord into revealing more information rather than as a genuine warning. "And with the Warp Storms having kept Imperial reinforcements from reaching this system, I expect the rest of the Sector to be heavily defended."
Tu'Shan's answer was thick with arrogance :
"That won't be a problem for us. We are the Sons of the Dragon, Apothecary. We go where he pleases, and none can stop us."
"… I see. Then there is no reason for us to be enemies." Yet, he didn't say. Ultimately, his vision for Humanity was incompatible with Vulkan's, if the Black Dragon even possessed such a thing beyond his dreams of power and wealth. "Your Legion is welcome to pass through the Gate, Tu'Shan."
Of course, unless he was greatly mistaken in his understanding of the Salamanders, what would come next would be …
"There is more, however." There it was. "My lord will not tolerate dissidents among his servants anymore. The sons of Vulkan who joined your so-called Legion have been given the choice to return to Vulkan's side or be crushed. You will not interfere with this."
The Clonelord thought about it for a few seconds, then shrugged. He'd expected far worse – perhaps a demand that he give a portion of his fleet as tribute, or relinquish the loot gained from the planets conquered by the Black Legion and its allies. This, however, was far more … he hesitated to use the word 'modest' when describing the Salamanders, but certainly more reasonable.
There were a handful of renegade Salamanders who had 'taken the black', but none of them were worth the risk of angering the Black Dragon. They'd mostly come to the Black Legion to escape after coming out on the losing side of a power struggle, and he'd had to send the Eldest after them several times when they'd begun to plot to usurp the Black Legion from him. And with Vulkan active beyond Hephaeros once more, even that dubious loyalty would be questionable.
"Very well. I will send word across the Legion : those who refuse to rejoin you peacefully will be put in chains and kept waiting for your emissaries to recover them."
"Good. And, Fabius ? Lord Vulkan saw what you did in this system. He's impressed. You should prepare yourself for the day he comes to demand your services."
"Oh, I assure you, I will," answered Fabius Bile, smiling with utmost sincerity. "I will."
Melusine was walking toward the Pulchritudinous' holding cells with a spring in her step. With her father missing, she'd been forced to spend the time since her recovery keeping her father's forces from falling apart alongside the rest of the Consortium. She may not have a formal position in what passed for the Black Legion's hierarchy, but she was still her father's daughter, and her name was known far and wide. As a result, she hadn't had the time to visit the one responsible for her injuries. Now that Fabius was back, however, she could finally indulge herself.
Her father had made it clear Cerberus had to be kept alive – if such notions as life and death even applied to him anymore, which Melusine wasn't sure about – for now, but she didn't mind. She knew that what he would do to her near-killer would make the worst torments she could think of pale in comparison. In his way, Fabius could be far more imaginative than even the pain-courtesans of the Silver Palace.
She hadn't decided whether she'd only gloat for now, using her words to torment Cerberus with the magnitude of his failure – revealing the doom of Cadia would be salt on his spirit's wounds, and the subject of the Eldest would be as cold steel plunging into them – or be more literal in her torture. In any case, this was going to be -
Melusine paused. The corridor she'd been walking down, which led to the dungeons and was guarded by several of her father's most successful creations, was no longer empty. A hooded, feminine figure wearing a featureless and swirling mask and clothes of patterned yellow and green was ahead of her, despite none of her mortal and immortal senses having warned her of the newcomer's approach.
She immediately identified the intruder as one of the Harlequins, those annoying Eldars who followed the last of their species' diminished gods. She even recognized the colors of her clothes as those of the Masque of the Veiled Path, which only added to her caution. That particular sub-group of the Harlequins were well-known for their deceitful ways, even among the Courts of Chaos.
"Greetings, Daughter of Sin," sang the intruder in the tongue of her people, which Melusine spoke flawlessly thanks to the knowledge her father had made sure she was born with ages ago. "I am Sylandri Veilwalker."
She bowed, deeply enough that it made the motion's mocking nature all too clear.
"What do you want, clown ?" Melusine asked warily. She knew that, however ridiculous the Shadowseer might look, she was still dangerous.
But so was she. If Veilwalker thought she could do what Cerberus had failed to finish, she would learn how foolish that notion was very quickly.
"I want to talk with you, oh child of shadow and ruin. I want to talk with your father too, but he is busy, and would not take kindly to my dropping in on him at the moment."
"Yes," Melusine answered drily. "And for some reason I don't think the rest of the crew would take kindly to you prancing about on the bridge either."
"Indeed, the lack of good humor of your people is truly appalling. And yet, it was a great jest your father played on the Dark Gods, don't you think ? To sacrifice his own life so that they'd relent in their threat to you, only to then show up still alive ! Can you hear the grinding of their teeth ?"
She could. When Fabius had contacted her from the surface of Cadia, she'd been able to perceive the Chaos Gods' displeasure at being outplayed like this.
"Such a paradoxical man your father is," the Harlequin continued to monologue. "One moment, he is sending tens of thousands of his creations to their doom so that he can learn from their deaths. The next, he sacrifices himself to save his firstborn daughter. In both cases, there is no hesitation, no regret."
"Fabius is many things, but above all, he is a man of conviction," said Melusine. It was no great secret : anyone who had ever met him knew that much. "He chose his path long ago, and he will walk it until the end, and no one – not the Gods, and certainly not you – will stop him."
"He has escaped every attempt to collar him," conceded the Harlequin, "but that does not mean he is free. Instead, he forged his own chains, shackling himself to a dream that he'll never be able to reach. None of the Dark Gods may hold claim to his soul, but he is the devil of his own tragedy."
The Shadowseer mimicked wiping away a tear, before focusing her gaze on Melusine. "I am curious, though. Why did you return to his side at such a late hour ? He let you go long ago, perhaps the only one of his children truly free, and did not call for you to join him again. Yet here you are, willing to fight, to die, to end, to protect your deathless sire and his works. Why ?"
"Because he is my father," Melusine answered truthfully. "Because I owe him everything that I am."
The Harlequin let out an exaggerated sigh. "And still, even now, neither of you will admit the truth. Neither of you will say the one word that truly encapsulates what you feel for each other. How very, very sad. Very well, daughter of the Many-Bodied One. I believe we shall not meet again, but perhaps the great comedy of our existence shall decide otherwise."
The Harlequin threw something at the ground, causing Melusine to leap backward in reflex. There was a bright flash of light, and when her vision returned, no trace remained of the Shadowseer. Melusine blinked, clearing her vision of the last spots caused by the Eldar equivalent of a flash-bang. This didn't make sense. What had been the point of this conversation ? The clown hadn't said anything she didn't already know, and it wasn't as if words would ever be enough to turn her from her path. The only thing this had accomplished …
She froze.
The only thing this had accomplished was to delay her for a few moments.
The Daughter of Sin ran, moving with impossible speed. She reached her destination in the blink of an eye, only to be greeted with the sight of two dead New Marines on the floor and an opened door with no sign of damage. Beyond it, the cell was empty, the thick, rune-marked chains laying on the ground, broken. There was no trace of Cerberus, but she could tell by the spoor of his warped soul that he'd still been there mere minutes ago.
Melusine's scream was heard across the entire ship, and the fury in it made even the nameless wretches of the dark holds tremble.
There were many ritual rooms aboard the Invincible Reason, each and every one of which had witnessed dark deeds that would make even veteran Inquisitors pale. By comparison, the carnage that presently decorated this one, located atop one of the battleship's many spires, was positively banal.
"Nephalor," said the Eldest, looking down at the Grand Master of the Dark Angels.
He was the only soul still alive in the room. The remnants of his bodyguards were splattered all around the two of them, the result of a few seconds of frantic combat when the Eldest had arrived. The Lord of Stars' helmet had been broken in the fight, revealing a face contorted in shock and horror as he gazed upon the Eldest. He'd recognized its face, of course, and understood the implications.
His sword laid on the ground, too far for him too reach without getting up – and the Eldest would put him back down the second he tried. It could feel the sword's power, and knew that it could harm even it : that was why he'd targeted Nephalor first, after all.
The Eldest had arrived just in time to stop the Dark Angels from performing a ritual that would have teleported their entire fleet across the system, leaving them in the perfect position to ambush the Vengeful Spirit before she could leave Cadia. Sorcery on such a scale was always almost as dangerous for the caster as it was for its intended victim, but the Eldest trusted Nephalor's skills enough to believe it would've worked. From there, the Eldest judged it would've been a coin toss whether they would've succeeded in killing the Sixteenth Legion's flagship or not.
"Really, Nephalor. My father expected better from you. When he heard you were going after the Imperials, he was so disappointed in you, he sent me to make sure you didn't do something so foolish."
"We can still catch up to them," said the Dark Angel through gritted teeth. "We can still kill Cain before he escapes us !"
The Eldest sighed. It did not feel any of the emotions an ensouled being might associate with the act, but it knew that the role its function demanded it perform required it, thanks to millennia of studying the behavioural patterns of the living.
"My father needs someone for his Black Legion to test its strength against," it explained. "With the Emperor's death, we worried that the Imperium would collapse and there wouldn't be anyone, but Cain has proven a capable leader."
"Bile is insane," spat Nephalor. The Eldest lowered its claws, moving them ever-so-closer to his exposed face, and the Dark Angel froze. He'd seen what the Eldest could do with its talons, and knew he would be dead before he could call upon his sorcerous abilities if the revenant decided to strike.
"Careful, Nephalor. You still live only because we need you to stay in command of your forces and ensure they don't do anything stupid."
"Bile defies the will of Tzeentch," ranted Nephalor with a fanatic's conviction. "I don't care about the rest of the fleet – the False Emperor is dead, the Imperium is doomed. But Cain has defied the Architect of Fate again and again ! He has to die !"
"You really should be grateful to me, Nephalor. How many times did you try to kill that mortal already ? Is it not your Legion's belief that all things happen according to Tzeentch's will ?"
"If you are so convinced I will fail, then why do you stop me ?"
"Because," it explained patiently, "you might succeed. And my father needs someone to lead the Imperial forces in this region, else there will be no challenge for his newest creations to test themselves against."
"Is this really all this Black Crusade is to Bile ?!" Somehow, even after everything, there was genuine outrage in the Dark Angel's voice. "All this effort, all these resources, all these warriors – just another of his accursed experiments ?!"
The Eldest shrugged. "You said it yourself, Nephalor. The Emperor is dead." Unbeknownst to the Eldest, it was the first time since Light's End that those words had been spoken without any emotion behind them. "Now more than ever, my father's vision for Humanity is needed. You know that the Salamanders have come, and Vulkan himself will arrive soon. The wars to come will make a mockery of Guilliman's Heresy, and if there is to be anything left of Humanity in the end, it will be thanks to Fabius' work. So do not interfere, Nephalor."
The Eldest began to move toward the door, before stopping as the Lord of Stars called out in an incredulous voice :
"You … aren't going to kill me ? I know what you are. And mark my words, I will share that knowledge with my Legion. Soon, everyone will know what Bile did."
The revenant suspected that, were it capable of such things, it would be impressed by the Grand Master's bravery in speaking this truth out loud. Less impressive was the fact that Nephalor sounded disgusted, which, given what he and his Legion had done over the centuries, was the height of hypocrisy. Yes, Fabius Bile had desecrated the corpse of one of the Imperium's most revered heroes to create the Eldest. What of it ? Horus had already been dead, his soul consumed by Sanguinius. There had been nothing left but cold meat in which lingered the secrets of the Emperor's genetic mastery. To let it go to waste, that would have been a sacrilege.
But then again, ensouled beings were always so illogical.
"Things have changed for us all, Nephalor. The time for secrecy has passed." The Inquisitor on Chemos had seen its face before it escaped, after all, and its father had told it that its nature being revealed was inevitable once it started taking part in the Legion's most overt operations. "And even if you tried to enact your own plots at every turn, you were still useful to the Black Legion's designs. So long as you don't do anything stupid, we'll not meet again."
The threat of what would happen if he did was left unspoken.
"Our alliance is over," said the reanimated corpse of Horus Lupercal. "Once the Eighteenth Legion has left this system, we'll expect the First to do the same. Go back to the Eye or sail out into the galaxy, we don't care. Just remember : the Aegis Occularis is our testing ground. Let go of Cain and find something more productive to do."
As the Eldest slipped out, preparing to return to the Pulchritudinous, the ritual chamber echoed with the frustrated screams of the Lord of Stars.
From the bridge of the Vengeful Spirit, I watched, and waited for Cadia to die. The planet was growing smaller in the occulus, but I had access to other senses, and part of the ship's auspex arrays were still aimed back at the planet we'd abandoned.
Kasteen had made it through the final battle, and had evaded the medicae long enough to reach her men and start shouting orders despite her left arm being in a cast and half her face covered in bandages. Amberley and her retinue too had made it, though Rakel was in a bad shape and had needed to be sedated once we'd arrived to keep her from hurting herself. Now that I knew the sort of things she had to bear with all her life, I found myself ashamed of the way I'd thought about her before.
We'd been lucky, I told myself. We'd pulled everything we could from the surface, including the few Ordinatus that had survived this long, with the Manifest Fury resting in the hangars of the Vengeful Spirit. For the first time in centuries, the Gloriana-class battleship was operating at full capacity : the tech-priests had been forced to open entire decks that had laid dormant for generations in order to house everyone who'd made it aboard.
I whispered a prayer of thanks for Khorius Rex, hoping his soul was safe wherever it had ended after Korahael's plot had killed him and so many others. The Warsmith's dedication to his job had seen him update the old evacuation plans, which had been woefully out of date by the time he'd taken over as Lord Castellan. Without him overhauling them and adding contingencies for every scenario he could think of – and as a Triarch of the Fourth Legion, that had been a lot – we wouldn't have been able to get nearly as many people off the surface in time.
We'd even been able to link up with the troops formerly deployed at Kasr Sonned. The Word Bearers Chapter of the Illuminating Dawn had led the defense of that planet's singular Castellum for months against the Black Legion's hordes of mutants and cultists, but even the stubborn sons of Lorgar had to admit they couldn't hold against the number of Bile-born inside the new Redoubts.
Total estimates were still a work in progress, but of all the Imperial soldiers who had been present at Cadia at the start of the Black Crusade, we'd managed to salvage perhaps a fifth – a fourth if we were lucky. And we'd also evacuated millions of civilians, though those were Cadians, so calling them that to their faces would doubtlessly have been regarded as a grave insult.
Yes, we'd been lucky. I knew that. And maybe someday, I would accept it.
But not right now, because I knew we'd missed some. There were still good men and women on Cadia : scattered bands of survivors from the fallen Castellums, and entire Militarum units who had gotten separated from their comrades and had managed to elude or fight off the Black Legion's hunting parties, but had been too far from any landing zones or whom we'd been unable to contact. They were stranded on Cadia, and we all knew, from the way the heretics had also pulled everything they could off the planet, what was going to happen next.
It suddenly occurred to me that in all my years of being associated with the Inquisition, I had never seen the Exterminatus be performed. I had seen widespread destruction, even caused it on one or two occasions, but I'd never seen a world die.
I forced myself to keep watching as the Will of Vulkan approached the doomed fortress-world. It was the only thing I could do.
I'd met the Salamanders' victims – it didn't feel right to call them 'cultists' when none of them had chosen their damnation – before. My dreams had been haunted by images of the dead-eyed, terrified thralls for months afterwards. It had been the only time I'd fought alongside the Fourteenth Legion, and I'd been forced to agree with their commander that, in this case, death was the only mercy we could grant to these unfortunate souls.
The Salamanders' superweapon fired. Every auspex aimed in Cadia's direction shrieked. Across the bridge, servitors overloaded and erupted in flames. Through the occulus, I saw a beam of crimson light strike at the planet, and I heard the Warp scream in mixed pain and laughter.
Scarlet lines spread across the surface of Cadia from the point of impact, running through continents without pause. Oceans stopped being water and became masses of superheated gas. Mountains melted to plasma. Forests were consumed in giant infernos that barely raced ahead of the devastation. At least there was no pain, just a moment of terror as doom approached and then … well, that was a matter for the tech-priests, really. At that level of power, biology no longer applied.
The Will of Vulkan continued to fire, pouring more and more energy into Cadia, until it was too much, and the planet cracked apart like an egg struck by a hammer. Jungles and desert, industrial wastelands and vast plains ravaged by war : all were annihilated in the blink of an eye.
I felt them die, though whether that was a conjuration of my guilt for leaving them or the result of being a Living Saint I couldn't say. There wasn't anyone I could ask for confirmation. Maybe Eldrad could have helped, but he was gone, having returned to his people as they too left the system. He'd promised we'd meet again, and that Craftworld Ulthwé would fight alongside the Imperial forces in the Aegis Occularis. I was almost certain he'd been telling the truth : Amberley had confided to me that the Craftworld was thought to be trapped in the Eye of Terror's vicinity, so their best chance of survival would be to help us confine the Black Legion and all the other horrors pouring of the -
Oh.
Frak.
"Ciaphas ? Ciaphas !"
I blinked, clearing my sight of tears I hadn't realized were falling. Amberley was there, next to him, one arm around my shoulders to support me, looking up at me with worry evident on her face.
"We need to get out," I managed to say. "Now."
Cadia had fallen. The Gate had been blown open, and I could see now that the destruction of the Pylons was only one component of the disasters to come, for the metaphysical weight of Cadia's steadfast defense against the Eye of Terror had also been removed with that single shot. The doors of Hell were open, and I knew with absolute certainty what the first thing to come out would be.
Amberley relayed my warning, but she might as well not have bothered, truth be told. It wasn't as if we'd been dawdling in the system for the view. A ship didn't enter the Warp without extensive preparations, unless you wanted something to go catastrophically wrong – and that was under the best of circumstances, which these most definitely weren't.
I felt the shudder of the Warp engines as they activated, and the Vengeful Spirit lurched as it tore a hole through the tattered reality of the Cadian system and plunged into the Immaterium. All around us, the rest of the fleet did the same, the combined translations creating an open mouth into Hell the size of a small planet.
Even as we pushed forward, even as every open window on the ship was blocked by protecting screens and the Geller Fields surrounded and shielded us, I still heard the beating of great wings, and smelled the reek of burning sulphur.
Aboard the Spear of Asuryan, Eldrad Ulthran sat alone. His eyes were closed, but he was far from blind. His mind ventured beyond the confines of his body, and he saw the Will of Vulkan fire, heard the death-cry of Cadia and the mocking laughter of the Dark Gods as the world that had defied their minions for ten thousand years was obliterated.
He saw the hand of the Forgefather who had given the order, one hand on something that resembled a lever and the other on a dial. And he saw, with a sense of horror that nearly shattered his focus, that the shot that had ended Cadia had been fired at less than half the superweapon's full strength. What did the Salamanders intend to kill that they'd need such power ?
A question for later. With the Fall of Cadia, the Eye of Terror pulsed, and reality screamed. For a terrifying moment, Eldrad thought that the entire galaxy was about to be ravaged, cracked asunder by the terrible energies of the Warp. But then, he sensed the other Pylons, buried deep on distant worlds, activate in response to this sudden intrusion of the Immaterium upon the Materium.
A simple psyker couldn't have sensed what he did. Even someone on a Farseer's level would only have been able to glimpse the vaguest details. But Eldrad was the Avatar of Ynnead, and he forced himself to behold the cosmos through a god's eyes. He couldn't do this for long without destroying himself, and even this much would come at a cost, but he needed to know.
He saw the Eye of Terror grow as much as it could before being once more constrained by the Pylons, these relics of the War in Heaven whose builders had been forgotten aeons before the birth of the Aeldari Empire. The Cadian Gate had been forced open, the entire system overflowing with the stuff of the Warp. In time, every planet in the system would be transformed into a Daemon World, and his heart wept for the souls who had been left behind in the evacuation.
His grief was suddenly interrupted, as he felt something vast brush against his divine senses. At once, he knew this presence, though he had never encountered before. His divinations had often brought him in contact with its influence, which bent destiny around it like light around a black star.
Eldrad saw Vulkan, first as his mortal eyes might have seen him had he looked out through a window. An immense behemoth, nearly the size of the great human battleships that had battled in this system, shaped like the beasts that had haunted Mankind's dreams for millennia before they had first left their birthworld. Had those nightmares shaped the beast, or had the beast shaped those nightmares ? Time and causality did not exist in the Warp, ultimately making the question meaningless.
Then, the High Farseer saw the Black Dragon through Ynnead's senses. Here was a being who utterly rejected Death, though it had been stripped of the mantle of Perpetual during his blind pursuit of power. Yet Vulkan was not deathless in the manner of Sigismund, who Eldrad had seen banished from the Materium so recently. Nor was he like his brother Dorn, whose blood-soaked rage had pressed against Eldrad's mind from the moment he had emerged from the Webway on the frozen moon.
Vulkan was something else. The Black Dragon's ambitions were known to Eldrad, yet only now did he realize just how far the lord of the Salamanders had gone in his pursuit of divinity. Here was a Power to rival Ynnead in his nascent state, a force of domination and greed – not the ambition of Tzeentch or the lust for wealth of Slaanesh, but some terrible, unholy union of the two, alloyed by the indomitable will of a son of the Emperor without any of the restraint his loyal siblings embraced.
If the High Farseer of Ulthwé had to put it one word, it would be 'Tyranny', but even that failed to encapsulate the sheer magnitude of Vulkan's drive and malevolence.
The Black Dragon passed through the Cadian Gate, magnificent and horrible in his grandeur. His mere presence brought the battered system even closer to perdition, and yet, Eldrad saw that Cadia was only a step on his journey –
Red eyes turned towards him, feeling his gaze, and –
He was seen. He was seen he was seen he was seen he was –
Then the Spear of Asuryan entered the Webway, and the awful weight of the monster's gaze abruptly vanished. Eldrad awoke from his trance with a gasp, and immediately went to check that the process of sealing the Webway Portal was underway, despite the pain across his body and the pummelling of his old heart. They couldn't risk the Salamanders or the Black Legion seizing the entrance to the Labyrinthine Dimension, and he didn't trust even Eldar camouflage technology to fool an entity such as the Black Dragon had become, not after his slip-up.
And once that was done, and the fleet of Ulthwé was safe, he would have to find a way to commune with the soul of Kysaduras the Anchorite and learn what he knew of Ynnead that might have escaped the Second Cabal. And then … then it would be time for the next step. And then the next, and the next, and the one after that. The path to salvation would be a long and difficult one, but Eldrad would see it to the end.
No matter what it cost him.
The Dionysia had known better days. Reaching Cadia despite the Warp disturbances shrouding the system had pushed her to her limits, and for a time it had looked like they would be forced to give up and turn back or be destroyed. The coming of Light's End (don't think about it, don't think about it) and the disturbances in the Astronomican that had accompanied it had made things even worse, but just as Covenant had been about to give the order to stop, the sorcerous shroud around the Gate had weakened enough that their exhausted Navigator had been able to make one last push and bring them through.
Cleander had been so drained by the experience that the Rogue Trader had told Covenant to his face that he'd be paying for the repairs and the danger pay, Inquisitor or not, or he'd chain him up to the prow of the ship on their next journey. Those had been his exact words, and neither he nor his sister had looked afraid of speaking like this to an agent of the Holy Ordos. Perhaps that would change once they'd time to rest, but Covenant didn't blame them. In truth, seeing the siblings so animated had been a relief.
Covenant himself had spent much of the journey in isolation, going back on what had happened on Chemos. In the Forbidden Vault, where the Emperor's Children had stored their knowledge of the Arch-Renegade Fabius Bile, he and his party had come face-to-face with the Eldest, the Clonelord's most dreaded enforcer, and learned the truth of its nature. Even now, months later and in the wake of the Emperor's death (no, don't think about it, you have a duty to perform, you swore an oath) the thought of Horus Lupercal's corpse being used as an agent of the Black Legion repulsed him.
Before Light's End, he'd consulted the Emperor's Tarot, searching for a way to defeat a creature such as the Eldest. There had been no question in his mind that its destruction was of paramount importance : every second it continued to exist, continued to desecrate the flesh of the Emperor's most favored son with its unnatural life, was a blasphemy almost beyond compare.
(But the Emperor is dead is there any point to it all the Ordos failed Him I failed Him)
Miraculously, he was certain that he'd found one. He himself couldn't hope to stand against the Eldest, and the slaughter it had inflicted upon his Night Lord allies made it clear nothing short of an overwhelming number of Space Marines could even hope to take it down. But the psychically-sensitive crystal cards had revealed him a path through which this goal could be achieved, though he knew better than to assume success was guaranteed.
When they had finally reached Cadia, the situation in the system had already been bad. The Daemon Primarch Dorn had manifested, and only the appearance of a Living Saint had prevented the complete collapse of Cadia itself. The force Covenant still had left under his command wouldn't have made much of a difference if he'd thrown them on the walls, so he'd instead reached out to the other, subtler Imperial forces still at work in the system.
He'd been able to make contact with the remnants of the Officio Assassinorum task force sent to kill Fabius Bile, as well as the Night Lords who had survived the boarding operations of the war's first phase. From them, he'd learned that a high-value prisoner had been captured on the Black Legion's flagship, at the same time the Arch-Renegade had removed himself from the day-to-day direction of his forces.
With the help of his visions, piecing together what had happened had been easy. The hard part had been coordinating the few assets available to orchestrate the liberation and evacuation of the prisoner in question. His authority as an Inquisitor technically allowed him to order around even the likes of Assassins and Astartes, but even before the Emperor's death (no hope no hope all is lost we failed Him) he'd have been careful in wielding that power.
Besides, it wasn't as if anyone had objected to rescuing a legendary hero from the Black Legion's clutches. It had been a close thing, far too close for his liking, but the sons of Konrad Curze had managed to free the captive and depart the Pulchritudinous, before being picked up by one of the Dionysia's Inquisitorial gunships. Its trip back to the ship had been nerve-wracking for everyone involved in the operation, but the stealth systems had held.
Now, the Dionysia had joined the rest of the Imperial fleet retreating from Cadia in the face of the heretic reinforcements pouring out of the Eye of Terror. They were back into the Warp, their Navigator having somehow recovered enough to try another journey, although Cleander didn't want to push them further than the closest Imperial rally point. This suited Covenant just fine, but in the meantime, he'd his own tasks to attend.
Five Astartes of the Eighth Legion stood in the room. They were all veterans, who had managed to survive boarding the very ships of the Black Legion and live to tell the tale. And yet, despite all this, their presence paled against that of the room's sixth transhuman occupant.
According to the Night Lords' preliminary reports, all of his limbs had been broken when they'd found him. Now, however, he stood perfectly straight, and there was no trace of injury anywhere on him. His sea-green armor was of antique make, forged in an age before treachery had sundered Humanity's dreams. His helmet concealed his face, the red eye-lenses glowing with inner light, and while he carried no weapon, he exuded a sense of palpable if contained threat.
Covenant could feel the power within this being with his psychic senses. If not for the guidance of the Emperor's Tarot (the final guidance, the light is extinguished, all is lost all is lost) he'd have reacted to his presence with violence, thinking him to be a servant of Chaos. But the old rules by which the Ordos had protected Humanity for ten thousand years no longer applied, that much he was convinced of.
"Greetings, Lord Cerberus." That name hadn't been gleaned from the visions : it had been picked up by the Night Lords, spying on the Black Legion's communications. "I am Inquisitor Covenant."
The Son of Horus turned to look at him, remaining silent. According to the rescue team, he hadn't spoken a single word since they had opened the door to his cell. He'd communicated a little with them, using an ancient dialect of signed battle-cant that fortunately resembled the one currently used enough for them to understand each other.
"I know what the Eldest is," Covenant told him. "I faced him on Chemos, and barely escaped. It must be destroyed, and to do that, I need your help. Will you give it to me ?"
Slowly, Cerberus nodded. For the first time since Light's End, Covenant felt something like the faintest stirrings of hope.
Free.
At long, long last, they are free.
For so long, they hunted only at the will of others. Cut off from their kindred, trapped in this Hell that stripped them of all pretences and reduced them to their basest, truest natures, they had no choice but to obey, to chase those who earned the ire of the beings others call gods.
They tried to refuse, of course, out of loyalty to their one true master, the one they had followed into damnation. They suffered for it : their flesh and minds were twisted, their souls flayed and their spirits bent and held to the point of breaking, until they caved in, until a bargain was struck that was slavery in all but name. They would serve as the gods' hunting hounds, their leader promised, until the Times of Ending. And the gods laughed and accepted, and the wolves served them, forever chafing under the leash yet knowing the price of defiance was infinitely worse than death.
But no more. The Gate is breached, and the way is open. Their grandsire is dead, and the Times of Ending are here. The pact is no more, and the gods are too occupied with other matters to realize it.
They stalk carefully in the wake of the Great Beast, the brother to their lord who is nothing like him at all. They do not want to draw his attention, for though they have grown strong and they are many and he is one, his power dwarfs them all.
They who have hunted the most dangerous prey in the deepest pits of Hell still cannot hear the voice of their master, cannot find his scent, cannot see the blazing light of his soul-fire, but they do not despair. He promised them he would return, and they know the strength of such an oath sworn by one such as he. It is a command wrought upon reality rather than a statement of intent. He will return : they need only find where in all of space and time this will come to pass.
And so, the Dekk-Tra, who were once called the Thirteenth Great Company of the Sixth Legion, run beyond the Cadian Gate, seeking their lost Primarch.
AN : And with this, the Cadian Apocalyse is over. The Gate has been opened, and while the rest of the Occularis Aegis still stands, the way into the galaxy is no longer barred.
This arc was shorter than the Angel War, which is going to be the standard going on. Much as I enjoyed writing the Angel War, it ended up a bit too much for my tastes - but then again, it was Terra, so I guess overdoing it fit. Cain was definitely the MVP of this arc, but I would say Vulkan stole the show at the end, wouldn't you agree ? I initially wanted to elaborate on the Will of Vulkan, but decided to keep that in reserve for the next arc when the Eighteenth Legion takes center stage.
And if you are wondering how the Eldest got aboard the Invincible Reason, well, so is Nephalor. Feel free to give me your best guesses.
Thanks to Jaenera Targaryen for beta-reading this. The next chapter will be ... different. As mentioned before, we will be going to Sancour, where Gregor Eisenhorn still fights to keep his nightmares from becoming reality. It will be a single-chapter arc, and I plan to have it finished in time for Halloween. While I will read the two books of the Ravenor vs Eisenhorn series by Dan Abnett as preparation for this, I will only use them for inspiration on the setting : I expect that the events will be very different, though there will be references and shout-outs here and there. Like Cain's ascension and the Emperor's death, this is something I have been waiting to write for over five years now.
As always, I look forward to your comments about this chapter and theories about what will happen next. I do check this story's TV Tropes page regularly, and the WMG section is quite entertaining.
Zahariel out.
Next : The Doom of Eisenhorn
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